Episode 23 - That's My Shirt!
Timestamps 0:02:59 - Superuniverse Top Ten (w/ Follow-Ups) * 10. El Pibe 10 '83 * 9. Coleslaw Jim Duggan * 8. Black Scorpion * 7. The Slip House Boys * 6. Denim Fritz * 5. Sue the Shooter * 4. Fake Stan Lane * 3. Orgasmic Larry Nelson * 2. The Hangman (Bruce Pobanz) * 1. Marc Gullen * NEW CHAMPION '''- Santo Gold (def. Yomamba the Jungle Savage) '''0:23:28 - A reading of a letter from Eddie Quinn to Sam Muchnick re: JACK PFEFER TGBL: What a letter, Bix! It just starts off right away with “I have been fighting the CANCER OF THE WRESTLING BUSINESS, Jack Pfefer. Not a lot of our listeners know who Jack Pfefer is, Bix. How would you describe Jack Pfefer? Bix: Like the best possbile Vince Russo? TGBL: I don’t think that’s fair to Jack! Bix: He was a promoter/booker, these days is best known for having fakes of various wrestlers -Bruno Sanmartino, Bummy Rodgers, Hobo Brazil, Ted Blassie… TGBL: I always like when you see a picture of the fake Bruno Sammartino – Bruno Sanmartino – and it looks nothing like Bruno. It’s a guy with a tattoo in the middle of his chest with a fro – not a fro, but longer hair; nothing like Bruno. Jack Pfefer was long regarded by most promoters as a troublemaker (laughing) and as a cancer to the wrestling business as this letter said. He would go into territories – I know he did it in New England, specifically in Boston, where he would go up there and have these fakes! 0:42:30 - Dennis of the Week (with guest Tom Robinson) ]] Tom: Dennis and I flew out with Taz, even though he might not admit it, and we flew out of – Taz flew from New York and there was a layover and we flew out of Philly. When we got off, sat together, blah blah blah blah blah, rented a car together – this is before ECW, so Dennis always trumped Paul E. on talent, in my opinion. We went out there and picked up Sabu who flew in. It was the first meeting of Sabu and Taz – Sabu admitted it on my Facebook page. There’s the popular story that they met each other the first night of ECW or some shit; that’s not the truth. They met each other in the back of Dennis’ rent-a-car. Dennis is like “You two know each other?” and Taz is like “Naw, I heard a lot about you brotha,” and Sabu’s like “Yeah. Yeah. What’s up?” You know, they’re talking back and forth, and Taz out of nowhere goes “You a shoota?” and Sabu goes “I’m the Sheik’s fucking nephew – of course I’m a shooter.” They just, you know, they clicked, but they didn’t. - on witnessing the first meeting between Taz and Sabu BEFORE the creation of ECW. ]] Tom: So I took the wind out of him – got a few shots, a headbutt; little bit in. I literally – swear to god on my mother’s life – said “How do you like MY fuckin’ suit?!” while I’m hitting him. So, he – in-between my swings and misses and swings and hits – he’s a martial artist, and he gave me a Fishhook – which, to this day, was the first time I heard of it – and it worked. It kept me at a distance where I couldn’t land any more, and I couldn’t bite his finger because he was stretching out my cheek. All of a sudden, that particular show, Pat Tanaka, Kevin Sullivan, and Sherri Martel – both who I love and I met Pat before – come over and really don’t know what’s going on, but by that point, all Angel sees is this long dark mullet on top of her boyfriend. She had a bottle of whatever beer, came over, and knocked the shit out of one of the Orient Express – as Kevin Sullivan was pulling me out of the bar. She thought Pat Tanaka was me because of the mullet, and it was all kinda just breakin’ up. She hit him so hard that he hit a gusher, you know. He was bleeding all over the place, and I saw it before I got pulled out, and I was telling Sullivan “I’m cool, you know I’m cool” and he’s like “get the fuck out of here!” He didn’t wanna hear I was cool at that point. Some friends that were there were like “Tanaka was bleeding like crazy – he started, he was going to go after Angel and she explained herself,” blah blah blah, and it ended up a memory. - on fighting Jason Knight in a bar, in which during the skirmish, Angel Amaroso confused Pat Tanaka for Tom, and broke a bottle over his head. 1:10:26 - What If? ESPN DIDN'T pick the AWA in 1985 for it's programming slot TGBL: Yeah. I mean, I guess the first question is – and there’s a lot to go over with this, but – Bix, in your opinion, how important was the ESPN deal to the AWA? Bix: It meant something, because they ended up getting the action figure deal and some other little merchandise deals for toys, and the home videos that were at Toys R Us and stuff – who knows how much that actually meant specifically in terms of actual numbers, but I would think; I don’t know if they were getting paid for the time, either. But, I would think that it was overall a net positive. I mean, later on when they were doing terribly, the ESPN deal was the only thing keeping them alive. Now that I think about it, they were getting money – at least later – for the show. I would think overall it was a positive – like I said: it kept them alive. They would only run tapings at one point. On and off from ’87-88 – around that time – they wouldn’t really run shows between tapings most of the time. Like, when Curt Hennig went to Memphis for that extended run in ’88, that was because Verne was paying him so he wouldn’t lose him to the WWF, and he needed shows for him to work. So, clearly it made a difference for the AWA. 1:30:12 - Homophobia in Wrestling / Homophobia of the Week * A discussion and listening of a promo between Handsome Jimmy Valiant and Jerry Lawler in Memphis circa 1979, in which Jimmy Valiant tries to insert himself in the main event, and is called a litany of names by Jerry Lawler, who's also miffed about his influence over his cousin, Wayne Ferris. 1:43:39 - John Arezzi (Part 1) John: Ok. There’s another fanboy oddity wrestling fan who went by the name of Capt. Lenny back in the day and I used to call the guy “Mittens” because he’d wear mittens in the summertime and clap his hands like a seal, and was way out there. So, we’re at this wrestling convention, and I forgot what city it was in, and George Napolitano and I always used to share room together when we went to the shows, and Lano was just bothering - just being Lano: obnoxious and bothering and knocking on the doors; trying to find out where we were. “Where’re we going? What are we doing?” So George was like “how do we get rid of this guy?” He’s like a pimple on your ass, you know? So, George filled up this bucket. In the hotel bathroom, there’s the basket – he filled it up with water and goes “The next time this guy knocks on the door, I’m gonna throw this water on him,” and sure enough, Lano’s knocking on the door. I open the door and George throws this water on him – just drenches him. “This was an expensive shirt! You’ve just ruined this shirt on me!” and George’s like “Here, you know what, take my shirt.” George felt bad, in a way – takes his shirt off, gives it to Mike Lano to wear. The very next day, we’re at the Wreslting Fan’s convention and there’s Capt. Lenny wearing George Napolitano’s shirt! George is like “Hey! That’s my shirt!” “Oh no it’s not – it’s not your shirt.” “It’s my shirt! Where did you get that shirt?!” “Mike Lano sold it to me.” (laughing) George goes “What?!” and George went nuts. I mean, he saw Lano, and he just went up to him and punched him right in the mouth – it was one of the funniest things. I mean, we couldn’t believe it. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but Mike was bothering us, George throws water on him, Mike sells the shirt to Capt. Lenny, and then he suffers one of the best punches I’ve seen in my lifetime. ''- on the long-winding topic that is fanboy oddity Dr. Mike Lano, in which he was punched in teh mouth by George Napolitano for for selling a shirt GIVEN to him by George to another fan in Boston at the WFIA convention in 1979.'' 2:38:21 - Book of the Week 2:50:43 - Classic Audio - Michael Hayes 1988 Dallas Radio interview Notes * This was the first time - and would follow the same formula throughout the show's history - that the Top Ten would be the first segment on the show, amalgamating with the Follow-Ups through the duration of the segment.